Infectious Disease Prevention and Control

NACCHO is strengthening local health departments' capacity to respond to and control infectious diseases. Cases or suspected cases of new and emerging infections are likely to appear in community hospitals, private provider offices, and community health centers, making local health departments frontline responders. Approaches to preventing infectious disease or controlling its spread depend on identifying causes and understanding how they can most effectively be addressed.

Local health departments can start to prepare for next year's flu season by registering for the Flu Near You online health reporting system. Through Flu Near You, thousands of volunteers answer a brief, weekly digital questionnaire about their health to benefit their community's flu awareness and tracking. NACCHO is working with the Skoll Global Threats Fund in partnership with HealthMap of Boston Children's Hospital to explore how local health departments can work with people in their communities to enroll them in Flu Near You and how to leverage the data as part of ongoing local influenza surveillance efforts. With more people enrolled in Flu Near You, the aggregate data can outline regional flu trends more accurately and complement existing public health surveillance systems.

Want to get involved with Flu Near You? Sign up today at https://flunearyou.org/ and encourage your friends, family, and colleagues to do the same. If your local health department is interested in or already using Flu Near You data for local influenza surveillance efforts, email infectiousdiseases@naccho.org.

The Ebola epidemic beginning in 2014 in West Africa is the first in history. Local health departments, in coordination with NACCHO, CDC, and other local, state, federal, and international partners, prepared for and responded to domestic cases of Ebola. To learn more, see CDC's response overview in "The Road to Zero: CDC’s Response to the West African Ebola Epidemic, 2014–2015." More »